To prevent illegal immigration, the EU has built a set of far-reaching border control and enforcement policies. But it doesn't work: today's 'Fortress Europe' is an inefficient, immoral and costly bureaucratic construction that should be urgently reformed.

British and American intelligence agencies overwhelmingly conclude that al-Qaida and its offshoots are stronger and more powerful now than they were at the time of the 9/11 attacks. Insofar as the "war on terror" was intended to eliminate the networks responsible for those attacks, it has clearly failed to realise this objective.

Matthew Carr is a journalist and radio broadcaster.

He is the author of Unknown Soldiers(Profile, August 2006) and The Infernal Machine: A History of Terrorism (New Press, April 2007), which studies the breadth of terrorism and counterterrorism from imperial Russia to al-Qaida.The actions of the Bush administration and its allies have handed the strategic initiative to their enemies, tarnished the democratic credibility of the United States and established an authoritarian template that numerous governments have reproduced in their own "wars on terror". In attaching itself so closely - and apparently uncritically - to these policies, the British government in particular has contributed to this overall failure.